"The Big Short" is an impressive film that takes a complex story about the financial crisis and turns it into a fast-paced thriller. 

Co-writer and director Adam McKay pulls out the most interesting storylines from Michael Lewis' novel, supplementing it with a bit of excitement (bending of the truth) as needed. But he also somewhat neglects a big backstory from the Oscar-nominated film. 

McKay devotes plenty of screen time to Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), the bullish Mark Baum (Steve Carell), Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) and Charlie Geller (John Magaro), though it might have served the film well to focus on the rise of Dr. Michael Burry -- the group's biggest outsider. 

Throughout the film, Burry (Christian Bale) is portrayed as an off Wall Street maverick, shoeless and wearing a T-shirt while listening to heavy metal. Occasionally, he wears a smart suit. In a flashback, the audience sees him as a young football player with a glass eye. Not once does Burry don a white lab coat, which is interesting because his background is in medicine. 

But the movie never really delves into the man behind his title -- Dr. Michael Burry. If you're not in finance (or if you didn't read Lewis' book), you might not know about Burry's journey from medical professional to Internet writer to financial whiz kid. And after getting a glimpse of the "M.D." on Burry's nameplate at the beginning of the film, it seems like an interesting backstory that the movie might eventually explain. But it never does.

What McKay doesn't include in his film is that Burry first began writing about finance while he was still in medicine. 

"Late one night in November 1996, while on a cardiology rotation at St. Thomas Hospital, in Nashville, Tennessee [Burry] logged on to a hospital computer and went to a message board called techstocks.com," Lewis writes in his book. "There he created a thread called value investing. Heaving read everything there was to read about investing, he decided to learn a bit more about 'investing in the real world.'" 

While Burry's expertise and respect in the finance world grew, he transitioned from that thread to his own blog. After working 16-hour shifts at the hospital, Lewis said that it was common for Burry to work between 12 a.m. to 3 a.m. to keep up with his investing site. Michel Del Buono, a former analyst at Scion Capital, told Bloomberg that Burry was devoting so much time to studying for medical school and value investing, he once fell asleep standing up during a complicated surgery. 

"He started up a little webpage where he just gave his opinions on the market," Bale said in an 2015 interview with ScreenSlam about Burry. "And people started to pay attention and make a lot of money off of his advice." 

While people were becoming more interested in Burry's work, he moved to Stanford Hospital for a neurology residency in 1998. There Burry began to question his chosen career. 

"The deeper he got into his medical career, the more Burry felt constrained by his problems with other people in the flesh," Lewis wrote. "He briefly tried to hide in pathology, where the people had the decency to be dead, but that didn't work." 

Burry eventually left Stanford to pursue a career as a money manager. With his own savings (and additional funds from his family) the doctor founded Scion Capital. Burry first focused on stocks before turning his attention to bonds -- an entirely different field of finance -- a few years later. While it's hard to comprehend a jump from medicine to finance, his leap from the stock market to the bond market is almost as great. 

All of this background information helps us better understand the Burry we see in the film -- a socially awkward hedge fund manager who hardly interacts with his employees and has limited contact with his investors, who he doesn't necessarily trust. Burry's backstory also adds considerable ammo to Lewis' main point that only Wall Street outsiders could see the time bomb Wall Street insiders had created.

"I think it was an immunity to information, to social information like propaganda from Wall Street," Lewis said of Dr. Burry's outsider status. "He has Asperger's syndrome; he doesn't like talking to people, he doesn't have really close friends, everything is numbers and analysis of numbers. And he persisted. And so as a result he didn't listen to anybody who said: 'Oh, that triple-A is triple-A.'"  

To be sure, including Burry's incredible background could've distracted from the story arc of "The Big Short." His metamorphosis from M.D. to financial guru is nearly enough to merit a movie of its own. At 44 years old, Michael Burry has plenty of time to make more career changes to add to his (future) Hollywood story.  

"The Big Short" is up for five Oscars at the 88th annual Academy Awards. 

Also on HuffPost: 

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If you're familiar with the work of street art prankster Hansky, you know he's a sucker for a good pun. So when Donald Trump announced his presidential run, and exhibited such poop-like attributes, Hanksy couldn't help but make the connection, depicting Mr. Trump as a giant, wigged dump. 

Hanksy didn't stop there. He took his (shit) show on the road, urging voters in New Hampshire and South Carolina to "Dump Trump." 

You know the result: Trump won both primaries. Needless to say, Hanksy, like much of the nation, is disturbed.

"I’ve never put much weight behind my work," he wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "It’s all very topical and light-hearted. I painted that silly Trump mural in NYC late last summer a few weeks after the wigged one announced his presidential run. The mural was a joke and so was Trump. Unfortunately the punchline never came and it’s scary as hell."

Hanksy is hoping that you good Internet people (yes, you!) will help spread his message far and wide: that we should please, seriously, right now, dump Trump. If you head to his website, Dump Across America, you can download buttons, yard signs and banners to help your neighborhood see the light. "Print, post, protest," he urges. 

Get (sh)it together and start protesting ASAP, Hanksy begs. If not, there's a very scary chance your next president won't know the difference between poop and a potato. 

Editor's note: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S. 

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Anohni is the first openly transgender performer ever to receive an Academy Award nomination, but don't expect to see her in attendance at the ceremony in Los Angeles on Feb. 28. 

The British singer-songwriter, 44, has been nominated for Best Original Song for "Manta Ray," her collaboration with J. Ralph that was featured in the film "Racing Extinction." However, she said, her feelings of excitement faded once she realized she wouldn't be invited to perform at the ceremony, despite the invitation of fellow nominees Lady Gaga, Sam Smith and The Weeknd. 

Anohni, who was previously known as Antony Hegarty of the band Antony and the Johnsons, slammed the producers of the Academy Awards in a blog posted Thursday on her website for emphasizing "performances only by the singers who were deemed commercially viable."

Despite the snub, Anohni said in the blog that she'd planned to attend the nominee events in Hollywood, but eventually just "couldn't get on the plane." She wrote: 

I imagined how it would feel for me to sit amongst all those Hollywood stars, some of the brave ones approaching me with sad faces and condolences. There I was, feeling a sting of shame that reminded me of America’s earliest affirmations of my inadequacy as a transperson. I turned around at the airport and went back home.

Listen to "Manta Ray" below, then scroll down to keep reading.

She wrote that she did not believe that she was omitted from the lineup for being transgender, pointing to the fact that South Korean soprano Sumi Jo, who sang David Lang's nominated "Simple Song #3" from the movie "Youth," was also not included. The only explanation offered from the Academy, so far, was that both performances were omitted simply due to "time constraints," Variety reported.  

Noting that she "[knows] that I don't have an automatic right to be asked," Anohni added: 

I will not be lulled into submission with a few more well manufactured, feel-good ballads and a bit of good old fashioned T. and A. They are going to try to convince us that they have our best interests at heart by waving flags for identity politics and fake moral issues. But don't forget that many of these celebrities are the trophies of billionaire corporations whose only intention it is to manipulate you into giving them your consent and the last of your money. They have been paid to do a little tap dance to occupy you while Rome burns. 

 

Stay strong, Anohni. We'll still be rooting for your success. 

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We made an Oscars quiz! There are many like it, but this one is ours. 

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If artists are supposed to suffer for their work, then Tom Miller must be a genius.

Friday night, the Gainesville, Florida-based performance artist will attempt to go where few others dare by staring at Ted Cruz's mouth for two hours straight.

"This is the most dangerous thing I've ever done," Miller told The Huffington Post. "It's like being caught on 'It's A Small World' for two hours straight."

Miller will be doing his two-hour "Ted Gawk" starting at 7 p.m. at the Hardback Cafe.

The 50-year-old artist will be on a stage staring at a giant photo of Cruz without breaking eye contact (blinking is allowed). 

"People can attempt to interact with me, but I won't be focusing on anything else but that smile," he said. "Maybe someone will bring a beer to ease the pain."

Then an hour after his Ted Cruz staredown, Miller will unveil an original piece of artwork to commemorate the event. 

Miller insists the two-hour staredown at Cruz's grin is not a political statement.

"His face perplexes me," Miller said. "How can someone be happy and smiling, but give you the feeling they're not happy or smiling? I feel like I'm staring at the abyss to see if there is any glimmer."

Amazingly, Miller said he'd prefer to stare at Cruz's mouth in person than the two-dimensional he is using tonight.

"When you're looking at a picture of his mouth, you're looking at the collective conscious of whatever we think he is," he said. "It might easier to do it in person."

Cruz's mouth has come under scrutiny in recent weeks after neurologist Dr. Richard Cytowic published a piece entitled, "Why Ted Cruz's Facial Expression Makes Me Uneasy."

Cytowic said his misgivings had nothing to do with politics, but with how Cruz's facial expressions are at odds with his words.

"No matter what the emotional coloring of Senator Cruz's outward rhetoric is, his mouth typically tightens into the same straight line. If it deviates from this, then the corners of his mouth bend down, not upwards. The outside of his eyebrows bend down, too, when he emotes, something so atypical that it disturbs me. Typically a person's eyebrows arch up, as does the corrugator muscle that furrow the forehead. What is such a downturned face signaling?"

But he gave Cruz the benefit of the doubt by saying the Senator "may well be unaware that the message of his body language is incongruent with his words."

Check out the gallery of Ted Cruz smiling (if you dare) and then vote in our poll:

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As Rare Disease Day approaches, people around the world are focusing on those whose lives have been affected by less well-known conditions.

UK-based photographer Ceridwen Hughes dedicates much of her work to shining a light on the lives of kids with rare diseases. Drawing inspiration from her son Isaac, who has a rare neurological condition called Moebius syndrome, the photographer raises awareness about different diseases through an organization called Same But Different.

Central to much of that work is a photo series called "The Rare Project," which features photos of Welsh and English kids with rare diseases -- along with their stories, as told by family members. The descriptions highlight what makes them special as kids, beyond their medical diagnoses. 

"Many of the families taking part have spoken of the isolation that rare diseases can have on them, and by taking part they have a platform that allows them to share their stories," Hughes stated in a press release for an upcoming fundraiser.

"When the general public hear the word ‘rare’ they assume it will not have an effect on them, but this is far from true as the statistics show," she added. "When a child is diagnosed with a rare condition it will ultimately affect that person, their family, the medical profession looking for ways to treat them, their teachers and the wider community in which they live."

In honor of Rare Disease Day on Feb. 29, here are 10 of Hughes' portraits of kids, along with their parents' descriptions. 

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You can't help but linger on this pale blue ice.

The nearly neon chunks are piling up near Lake Michigan’s 5-mile-long Mackinac Bridge -- especially gorgeous against the muted tones of the snow and winter sky.

Mackinaw City resident Liza Signor told Michigan Live that the unusual color is a common phenomenon in the area.

"Usually you don't see it until it becomes dammed up like that,” she said. "A week ago, it was all open water in front of our house. It changes that fast."

Ice and snow usually appear white because all light hitting the surface gets reflected back. However, when ice crystals are coarser and the ice has fewer bubbles, light waves are able to travel deeper into the ice, the National Snow & Ice Data Center explains. This means that longer red wavelengths wind up getting absorbed, while shorter blue wavelengths get scattered, causing the blue color viewers see. The deeper that light is able to travel into ice, the bluer the ice will appear, according to the National Park Service.

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There's nothing quite like watching a master artist breathe life into his work.

In the short film "The Eye-Opener," director François Schick takes viewers inside the Nalanda Monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery located in Southern France. The film shows a Nepalese artist completing a statue of one of Buddha's arhats (disciples) over the course of several months.

He starts with a simple white statue that he uses bright orange, teal and pink paint to add intricacy to the folds of the arhat's robes. The video shows all the minor details that goes into the artist's process of crafting this work of art, from him sharpening his pencils to tracing out patterns on the statue's base.

The music builds throughout the moving six-minute video until the "crucial point" when the eyes of the statue are finally opened.

Watch the film above for a behind-the-scenes look at this captivating process. 

H/T Lion's Roar

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Every spring in New York, Broadway comes to fresh life with a new batch of musicals, whose talented cast members sing and dance their way into our hearts. And every year, we kick off the season with an advance look at some of the sexiest performers that Broadway musicals have to offer. 

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What do you get when you take 20 bearded men and add a ton of glitter? A meditation on gender expression and some seriously gorgeous photos.

When photographer Mark Leeming first began seeing photos of men with glitter in their beards popping up on the Internet, he felt inspired. "I quite liked the idea of pushing and blurring the boundaries of the femme vs masc stereotypes," he told The Huffington Post.

Leeming then found even more inspiration in the "RuPaul's Drag Race" franchise, leading him to create his "Bearded Brutes" series. The project, which explores a wide range of gender expressions, includes 20 different men showcasing 20 different glitter-doused beards.

The Huffington Post chatted with Leeming this week about "Bearded Brutes," striving to break free of labels in his work and more.

How did the project start?

Mark Leeming: It was in October/November of last year that images of men with glitter adorned beards started to surface on the Internet. This caught my eye immediately as I am somewhat of a "magpie" and have always been drawn to all things that sparkle & shine, especially as child. Raiding my mothers jewelry box, tipping out and ogling its contents was a regular Sunday ritual at my house. From there on I decided that I wanted to give it a go and create a few portraits of friends, but up the ante somewhat and apply a full face of makeup.

I quite liked the idea of pushing and blurring the boundaries of the femme vs masc stereotypes. I had been watching a lot of "RuPaul's Drag Race," and got a lot of my friends on the RuPaul wagon now. I just fell in love with everything about it -- the costumes, the makeup, the wigs, the catfights! I wanted to give it a go. I had done some drag in my late teens -- dipped my toe in so to speak -- but now I wanted to really try it properly. I started watching makeup tutorials online, practicing on myself to hone my craft.

When it came to the start of the "Bearded Brutes," I decided I was going to use my newly found makeup skills on all the guys. It ultimately has turned into a series of colourful, popart, kitsch genderfuck portraits. Each one has their own story behind it. None of them are thrown together and they all reflect the model chosen.

How are you exploring and complicating ideas of art and identity -- and how they intersection -- through these photographs?

I wanted to show gay men in an almost ambiguous way. Obviously you see that they are male first and foremost, but with an added streak of playfulness and kitsch quality. Over the past few years I have become more and more integrated into the drag community, more so with the #manchesterqueens and this zest for life and passion they have I really soaked up. What they do every weekend is a pure art form. It’s not just throw on some lashes and a cheap wig -- it is cohesive, well-planned projected living artistry. I guess their influences transcended into my working style and this ultimately formed the "Bearded Brutes."

There is so much pressure I think to conform these days and be so gender specific, but why? Why do we have to brand ourselves as gay, bi, trans, straight, gender neutral, etc? Society as a whole plays a big part in forcing people to decide who they are and what they are about. NO thanks, not for me. I think that sometimes trying to conform stunts creativity and growth. What I am so lucky and grateful for is that I get to hang around with creative types all the time who never label themselves, and it's a pretty exhilarating experience being in a label-free environment.

What do you want people to take away from these photos?

The inspiration for these came from wanting to produce something that when you walk into the gallery and see these on the wall you just go "oh my." I wanted them to be bursting at the seams with individuality, color and personality. They have a pop-art kitsch feel to them, which I love. The world has become such a dark dangerous place of late -- I wanted to turn the light back on.

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Hey, remember #TheDress? Of course you do -- looking around, you can see the empty spaces once filled by the friends and loved ones lost over arguments of white and gold versus black and blue.

We’ve got bad news: The carnage might not be over. Friday, exactly one year after #TheDress drama, Buzzfeed drew the Internet’s attention to this Tumblr post:

The jacket, in real life, is blue and white, California teen high schooler Mariam Kabba told ABC News. After a friend disagreed, insisting that the photo looked black and brown, a third friend, Nina Penzo, posted the above image to Tumblr. (Some people online have also said it looks green and brown or green and gold.)

"I had no intention of it blowing up," Penzo told the network. “I didn’t think it would get as big as it did.”

The timing here is a little eerie, given it’s exactly one year after the great #TheDress debacle of 2015. Is it just a coincidence? Did Penzo wait to post the photo until #TheDress’ anniversary? Is this a Masonic conspiracy by the same people who some believe turned JonBenet Ramsey into Katy Perry?

We may never know for sure. And we might not much care. As the Irish Examiner aptly pointed out, people seem a lot less interested in arguing over #TheJacket than they did #TheDress. Many cite sheer exhaustion over the pointless color-based arguments.

We can sympathize. But… what color do you see?

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As if it wasn't enough that Hollywood lacks serious diversity behind and in-front of the camera, the industry also has a nasty (not-so) little habit of giving diverse roles to white actors. 

That means that while an average of 75.2 percent of speaking roles already go to white actors, according the USC study "Inequality in 100 Popular Films," some of those parts are actually characters of color.

Over time we have come to expect a tsunami-sized wave of backlash when an actor of color is cast as a fictional character that audiences feel should be white -- see controversies over Michael B. Jordan as the Human Torch or Amandla Stenberg as Rue of "The Hunger Games" -- but the outrage isn't quite the same when white actors portray characters of color. Even when, often, they are based of off real-life people of color. 

Think whitewashing, blackface and yellowface are a thing of the past? Get ready to cringe. Here are 25 times white actors played people of color and no one really gave a sh*t.

But these are just a handful of examples from a long list of cringe-worthy and shameless casting decisions in Hollywood. We could also talk about Emma Stone as part-Asian Allison Ng in "Aloha," Justin Chatwin as Goku in "Dragonball: Evolution," Fred Astaire in blackface in "Swing Time," Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily in "Pan" -- because it's a seemingly never-ending story. And what have we learned after all this time? 

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"Spotlight" grabbed another top Hollywood prize on Saturday, collecting the Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature. Oscar voting is closed, so the race is said and done. Still, this could be the first of two major victories for "Spotlight" this weekend -- unless the Academy warms to "The Revenant," of course. ("The Revenant" cost too much to qualify for the Indie Spirit Awards.)

Best Female Lead winner Brie Larson is almost guaranteed to return to the Oscar podium on Sunday, whereas Best Male Lead and Best Supporting Male champs Abraham Attah and Idris Elba weren't even nominated for Oscars. (#OscarsSoWhite.)

Doubling as a de facto Oscar dress rehearsal, the Independent Spirit Awards honor American movies made for less than $20 million. They're held at a beachside tent in Santa Monica. 

See the full list of winners below.

Best Feature
“Anomalisa”
“Beasts of No Nation”
“Carol”
“Spotlight”
“Tangerine”

Best Director
Sean Baker – “Tangerine”
Cary Joji Fukunaga – “Beasts of No Nation”
Todd Haynes – “Carol”
Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson – “Anomalisa”
Tom McCarthy – “Spotlight”
David Robert Mitchell – “It Follows”

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Mya Taylor just made history: On Saturday afternoon, she became the first transgender performer to win a high-profile Hollywood accolade. 

Honored for her work in "Tangerine," Taylor took home the Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. It marked the culmination of a lengthy awards season for the movie, whose distributor, Magnolia Pictures, staged a low-key Oscar campaign that also garnered Taylor a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Actor.

At the Independent Spirit Awards, which recognize American movies made for less than $20 million, Taylor was up against Robin Bartlett (“H.”), Jennifer Jason Leigh (“Anomalisa”), Marin Ireland (“Glass Chin”) and Cynthia Nixon (“James White”). Her co-star, Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, was nominated for Best Female Lead, but lost to Brie Larson ("Room").

"There is transgender talent," Taylor said during her acceptance speech. "There's very beautiful transgender talent. So, you better get it out there and put it in your next movie."

Taylor, 24, isn't the first transgender performer to earn an Indie Spirit nomination, however. That distinction belongs to Harmony Santana, a 2012 nominee for the drama "Gun Hill Road." Taylor is, however, along with Idris Elba, one of the only black performers to score acting prizes throughout this awards season. (Neither is nominated for an Oscar because #OscarsSoWhite.)

"Tangerine," one of 2015's most memorable indie-film victories, revolves around two transgender sex workers who traverse Los Angeles in pursuit of their pimp. Director Sean Baker shot the movie using iPhones and a shoestring budget. It premiered at last year's Sundance Film Festival and rode a wave of critical plaudits. 

"Tangerine" is now available on Netflix, and you'd be a fool not to watch it.

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“#OscarsSoWhite they asked to touch my hair.”

That was the first tweet April Reign said she sent last year after the list for the 2015 Oscar nominees highlighted a roster that was overwhelmingly white.

Reign -- a writer, editor and former lawyer who lives in Washington, D.C. -- said she initially created the hashtag to mock the lack of diversity at the award show. But almost immediately, users adopted it to call out the show in their own way and highlight the need for more inclusion of stars of color.

Within days, #OscarsSoWhite took on a life of its own. It flooded timelines, headlines and stories for weeks.

And when this year’s list of nominees failed to show any improvement among its acting categories, #OscarsSoWhite resurfaced for round two -- and it was as resounding as ever.

“The response this year was so much more than last year,” Reign told The Huffington Post. “My hypothesis is that one time is a fluke and two times is the beginning of a pattern -- that’s when people latched on.”

The calls for diversity were echoed by actors, activists, producers and moviegoers in the U.S. and abroad. Film creatives called for inclusion from Germany, London, New Zealand and South America, among other places.

“They are standing up and saying hey, this is a problem in our country too,” Reign said.

One time is a fluke and two times is the beginning of a pattern."
April Reign

The hashtag transformed into a movement fighting for fair representation and recognition of people of color in film -- a mission many critics, who accused Reign of condemning those stars who were nominated, seemed to miss.

“It’s not about saying who is snubbed and who should have been nominated, it’s about opening the discussion more on how the decisions were made, who was cast and who tells the story behind the camera,” Reign said. “My goal was just to have the conversation and push the dialogue further.”

Reign, who originally joined Twitter in 2010 and has been active on the platform since, has always used it to voice her opinions, spark discussions and challenge others to debates around inclusion and diversity. These are all things she had experience doing after practicing law for nearly 20 years. But there came a time where Reign was no longer stimulated or satisfied with her career in campaign law. 

“There was no imagination or creativity involved,” she said -- so left the courtroom altogether and instead spoke to more people through more public platforms in media. 

Reign eventually became the managing editor of BroadwayBlack.com and the editor-at-large at Nu Tribe magazine, separate platforms that both speak to people of color and celebrates their achievements. 

“I leaped; it felt right,” she said. “I worked until I found what really made me happy and being in this space and dealing with issues of entertainment and race makes me happy.”  

#OscarsSoWhite isn't the first time Reign was able to create change on Twitter. In early 2014, she sent a series of tweets speaking out against a boxing match that was scheduled to take place between rapper DMX and George Zimmerman, the man who killed Trayvon Martin.

“I thought it was a really bad idea,” Reign said.

She created the hashtag #StopTheFight and encouraged people to sign a petition to end the match. She was successful.

“Eventually the promoter, Damon Feldman, called me and had a conversation and he ultimately decided to cancel it,” she said.

Reign said she was gratified by the experience and she has since held a strong presence online talking about a range of topics  -- everything from entertainment, to politics, to racial and gender representation.

But publicly sharing her thoughts has also created an opening for trolls on Twitter who criticized her calls for equality and claimed she was racist, Reign said. 

“You can't be a racist because you're giving factual information. You can't be racist if you don't have control of the system from which racism emanates," she said. “People who would critique the hashtag typically have done no research whatsoever either about what I’m saying or the factual issues I’m addressing.”

And the most important platform that should consider Reign’s agenda -- the academy itself -- has done so. In January, Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced changes and pledged to diversify its membership by 2020. This came as a result of Reign’s widespread efforts online and the powerful protests they led to -- both among celebrities and everyday citizens.

“It’s a good first step, it’s the most significant change they’ve made in decades -- if not ever,” Reign said in response to the changes. “I’m gratified by that and will keep pushing.” 

Members of the academy aren't the only ones responsible for the lack of representation and recognition of actors of color. The fault also lies with Hollywood executives, who are mostly white men who have failed to prioritize color-conscious casting in their films.

“The onus has to be with the studio executives as they're sitting around the board room and deciding which films are greenlit and who is cast to tell the story both in front of and behind the camera,” Reign said.

The issue of representation touches Reign personally. Her name has largely gone ignored in the larger discussion and media coverage around #OscarsSoWhite. As the hashtag's creator, Reign rightfully deserves recognition, and while she does not actively seek it, many outlets have been guilty of not giving her credit when it’s due.

“I’m not looking for the recognition because the changes that have been made could not have been made without millions of people of color speaking out about the issue using the hashtag,” she said. “But at the same time, we talk so much about women of color being erased -- it's ironic that I’m talking to media about my erasure.”

Reign’s commitment to speaking up and taking action against systems of power that widely exclude people of color is admirable. Her words are powerful and her message is moving. If we are to live in a more inclusive society, she says, it's a mission we must all uphold, not just now but for generations to come. 

“Representation matters to me because my children should be able to move freely in the world without thought of how someone else's bias may affect them,” she said. “Because my kids should be able to see themselves up on a screen and should know that their stories are just as important as anyone else’s.”

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This is the fifth feature in a series that aims to elevate some of the transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals who have played a significant role in the ongoing fight for trans and queer liberation. Check out the previous features with CeCe McDonald, Kate Bornstein, Laura Jane Grace and Buck Angel.

Calpernia Addams is a transgender musician, performer, actress, activist and legend whose work has elevated transgender visibility and created spaces for queer and trans-identified people in Hollywood and beyond.

The first openly transgender woman to receive her own Bachelor-style reality dating show, which aired in the early 2000s, Addams has worked alongside friend and collaborator Andrea James to create Deep Stealth Productions, "a full-service production company that produces entertainment and educational content" involving issues affecting "differently-gendered people." Long before mainstream transgender visibility began to grow on television, Addams and James were two of the most prominent trans voices working and navigating the historically cisgender, heteronormative world of Hollywood and carving out space for people outside of and in-between the gender binary.

Addams' journey to living as her authentic self included time spent living in a fundamentalist Christian cult when she was a child, as well as serving time in the United States military. In this interview with Huffington Post Queer Voices, Addams reflects on living openly in the spotlight, the idea of a unified "trans community" and her own personal legacy as an entertainer and activist.

The Huffington Post: Can you pinpoint the beginning of your career? What were some of the first defining moments for you as a trans actress, musician and activist?

Calpernia Addams: If I had to think back to the origins of my desire to entertain, I’d have to revisit the three most influential places of my life: church, a library and a show bar.

I was profoundly shaped by growing up in a fundamentalist Christian cult in 1970s and '80s Nashville. We were taught of all the darkest, scariest parts of the Bible as if they were literal and true: Demons stalked us invisibly from Principalities of the Air. A literal Devil focused his immortal and powerful will specifically on me, in hopes of dragging me with him on Judgment Day into a fiery lake of burning sulphur riddled with undying worms. This was a horrible way to grow up, the moreso because I was trans, but they say art is often fed by struggle and pain. It certainly developed my imagination. The best thing -- perhaps the only good thing -- to come out of that time was the gorgeous Bluegrass Gospel and traditional music that I learned to sing and play on my fiddle, piano and other instruments. 

The church tried to keep us away from modern movies, television and music as much as they could, though bits and pieces leaked through. I desperately looked for mental escape by reading books, sometimes one a day, even reading as I was walking at school the way people walk hypnotized by their smartphones today. I wanted to be those incredible characters from all the great works of fantasy, science fiction and drama that I absorbed. I wanted to be beautiful, heroic, loved, powerful, smart, exotic… I wanted it all.

Lastly, after years in the military that forced me to come out of my shell and stand up for myself more, I went to my first gay bar and saw some beautiful transsexual women on stage. It all came together for me: I could perform music, be a larger than life “star” (in the small way that a Southern gay bar showgirl was allowed at the time) and through it all I’d be embraced and encouraged as I transitioned.

Now, years later, I have 14 years or so in Hollywood behind me with a decent page of IMDB credits, many many hours of stage time and a new career opening up as an acoustic musician and singer. As my friend Andrea James often says of transition in general, how many people actually get to live their childhood dream? For me, I am living both my dream of being my authentic self as a woman and my dream of being a working artist.

What role has music, art, and performance played in your journey to live as your authentic self?

In my early days as a showgirl in the South, trans women often performed on stage alongside drag entertainers at the various gay bars, as both an artistic outlet and as one of the few jobs in which you could work encouraged and loved among people who included you in their self-made family. If you were good, it could become a full time career, as it did for me. I was called by my female name and pronouns. My innate, natural femininity was complimented and encouraged. It was so different from how my family had all but cast me out, and how the average non-LGBT person reacted with disgust, scorn, condescension or outright violence.

It was a parallel life… we all lived alongside non-LGBT people, and moved through their world when we had to, but all of our friends were LGBT. All the bars we went to were LGBT (and pre-Internet, one had to leave one’s house to find community and friendship). The only people who loved me and treated me like a human being were LGBT. Some trans women never needed those cocooning years that the LGBT community gave me. They transition as quickly as possible and immediately move through the world as a heterosexual woman. I’ve been sneered at by a few of those, who see women on my path as failures: “Be a straight woman! Don’t ghettoize yourself in the gay bars!” Others have taught me all the things I never learned about non-LGBT society, and helped me fit in better in that new world.

The stage gave me so much confidence in myself, which I’d never have had outside the unique LGBT world of that time. I’ve always said that the stages of gay show bars are one of the only places in the world that a chubby loudmouthed effeminate boy could become a star and even a sex object. One of the only places a skeletally thin, lisping sissy could become a drop dead gorgeous bombshell. I took as much of that magic as I could, and made myself from it.

You appeared in a reality dating show as a trans woman years before what TIME dubbed the "trans tipping point." What was this experience like? How do you think this shaped reality television and public perceptions of trans people?

I was lucky enough to star in the first reality dating show starring an “out” transsexual woman: "Transamerican Love Story." It was a complete blast! World of Wonder, the production company behind so many iconic shows and media, took a big chance on me. I “fix up” decently, but I’m no breathtaking beauty like Candis Cayne or Andreja Pejić. Plus I have the burden of a tragic backstory, which I believe has held me back in many ways here in Hollywood. 

I totally get that reality TV is just stupid fun, but I really wanted to do good as a representative of the trans community, too. I decided the only way to make it work was to approach it earnestly: I would go in with an open heart and open mind, look for someone nice, and try not to do anything on camera that would embarrass me or the community. I’m proud of the show, but it probably would have made more of a splash if I’d done a few drunken bikini slap-fights or slept with all the guys just off camera like they do on "Big Brother." I didn’t end up finding a boyfriend from the show, but it was a great bonding experience for me and my best friend Andrea James. And the most enduring gift from it has been the forever-friendship that we developed with the host Alec Mapa and his family, Jamie and Zion.

I’ve always said that the stages of gay show bars are one of the only places in the world that a chubby loudmouthed effeminate boy could become a star and even a sex object. One of the only places a skeletally thin, lisping sissy could become a drop dead gorgeous bombshell. I took as much of that magic as I could, and made myself from it.

I’m thrilled to see the doors blasting open for trans people in the performing arts. We have always been there, on stage or screen or in song, but we no longer have to hide. I just hope internal politics don’t end up holding us back any further. And I hope the young artists who are finding success now will remember their big sister Calpernia when it comes time to cast that next role in their movie!

You founded Deep Stealth Productions alongside Andrea James. Why did you two take on this endeavor? What was the initial goal? How has that vision grown and changed?

Traditional trans wisdom used to hold that you really had to start over in a new city at a certain point in your transition. No matter how gorgeous you became, or how integrated into your chosen communities, there were always people in your hometown who loved to take jabs at you by throwing your old name out: “Girl you look amazing! You’ve come so far since I knew you as Rock Rockwell!” or just outing you as trans behind your back at any opportunity. I left Nashville to start over in Chicago, and there became friends with someone I considered a legend in the trans community: Andrea James. 

Andrea was a highly educated advertising executive who, in her spare time, founded one of the earliest and most exhaustive online trans information resources, TSRoadmap.com. She began it as a “keyword” in the early days of America Online, meticulously gathering info about hormones, surgery, legal and even spiritual issues for trans people. She later moved it off of AOL and to its own website. I had never met a trans woman like her: She lived a high-class, high-powered life among “straight people” and I saw none of the tell-tale signs of transition that I had come to recognize in the showgirl trans women I new. And most amazing of all, her speaking voice was absolutely, perfectly female. My speaking voice almost always cued people that I was trans, and in the process of her teaching me to change it we decided to create an instructional video: "Finding Your Female Voice." It was a very plain looking video, but it really worked and we were soon selling out of them faster than we could make them. We started Deep Steatlh Productions and added other instructional titles, until eventually we had enough capital to follow our dreams of making and supporting media by and for trans people in Hollywood. Since then, we’ve made several well-received short films, produced a major theatrical event with Jane Fonda and Eve Ensler, consulted for countless media projects and major corporations, and maintain several websites full of free resources for trans people.

What are your thoughts about "the trans community," especially as it's seen by the mainstream? How do you view where "the community" is right now and where is it going?

When we used to refer to a “trans community,” we were talking about a wide-ranging and diverse group of individuals who all shared the experience of socially, medically and/or legally taking steps to move from presenting as their assigned birth sex and gender roles, to their target sex and gender roles. In earlier times, it was often simplified down to desiring or having “the surgery” and crossing full-tilt from one side of the gender binary to the other, no shades of grey. As the transgender umbrella has expanded to include all manner of movement around the axis of sex and gender, I usually specify my journey as being “transsexual,” clarifying that I wanted to go to the furthest extent possible of medical, social and legal transition to female. Our communities have had the same growing pains and squabbles as any minority group, especially one whose unifying factor can be such a subjective experience. As attitudes have opened up, medicine and psychology have deepened their understanding and resources have become more abundant. We have new generations of trans people who never had to go through the “cocoon” underground years in gay bars and other LGBT undergrounds. Or live in constant dread while “passing” in mainstream society lest they face takedowns like 80’s trans supermodel Caroline Cossey experienced when she was outed and lost her career.

To me, worse than lacking a sense of history is lacking a sense of humor. I see a great humorlessness, selfishness, and a lack of empathy taking center stage sometimes and it honestly makes me ask myself, “What the hell was it all for? This?”

Many of us wanted this opportunity to join society with as little friction as possible, but I think it has also led to some younger trans people lacking a sense of history, and of compassion for people who built their identities in very different times. To me, worse than lacking a sense of history is lacking a sense of humor. I see a great humorlessness, selfishness, and a lack of empathy taking center stage sometimes and it honestly makes me ask myself, “What the hell was it all for? This?” Thankfully, there are more shining lights of wisdom, leadership and talent emerging in the trans community to push back against the ahistorical and selfish voices. I still have high hopes.

What does the future hold for Calpernia Addams? What do you want your legacy to be?

I like to think my story still has many chapters to be told, but in risk of appearing too geeky, I sometimes feel like Bilbo Baggins at the end of The Lord of the Rings. He was terribly worn down by the burden of carrying The Ring, so he chose to leave his old life behind and sail away forever to the heavenly Grey Havens with his dearest friends. Performance and art are my life, but I have plans to do a European tour with my forthcoming album of all original acoustic music. I love, love, love the bawdy nighttime speakeasy stages, where my inner Mae West and Marilyn Monroe take possession of me. But last year I spent a day walking the ancient stone circles of a small town in Wales, and then my dear musician friends and I tuned our instruments while the sun set. I spent the night sipping Scotch and playing the harp in a Gypsy tent, no makeup on and my hair up in a simple sweep. I haven't felt so happy in years.

Check Huffington Post Gay Voices regularly for further conversations with other significant and historic trans and gender-nonconforming figures. Missed the first three interviews in this series? Check out the conversations with CeCe McDonald, Kate Bornstein, Laura Jane Grace and Buck Angel.

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A golden seahorse, a fishing bear and a wrecked ship never looked so stunning.

Those are just some of the winning images in this year's Underwater Photographer of the Year contest. Italian photographer Davide Lopresti won the title of "Underwater Photographer of the Year 2016" for his seahorse photo.

The images, which made their public debut on Feb. 13, were judged by marine biologist Dr. Alex Mustard and photographers Peter Rowlands and Martin Edge.

"I hope you enjoy this inspiring feast of imagery as much as we did during the judging," Mustard said in a statement. "It is a pleasure and a privilege to sit down with Peter and Martin and spend two days devouring, digesting and cogitating on the entries."

Scroll down to see eight winning images in various categories of the competition below, and enjoy!

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At last, his love has come along. After four previous Best Actor losses across the past two decades, Leonardo DiCaprio can finally go home with an Oscar in tow.

"The Revenant" was the movie that garnered DiCaprio such hardware at Sunday's awards. He's remained the Best Actor front-runner throughout much of awards season, having won the Screen Actors Guild Award, the Golden Globe and the BAFTA. Oscar pundits universally predicted his victory ahead of the telecast, partly thanks to the relentless narrative about what a "living hell" it was to film "The Revenant." 

DiCaprio's previous nominations were for 2013's "The Wolf of Wall Street," 2006's "Blood Diamond," 2004's "The Aviator" and 1993's "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." Along the way, DiCaprio fans would have been quick to tell you the actor was snubbed for "Titanic," "Catch Me If You Can," "Gangs of New York," "The Departed," "Inception" and/or "Django Unchained." Now, he can put his graceful-loser face to rest.

DiCaprio topped Bryan Cranston ("Trumbo"), Matt Damon ("The Martian"), Michael Fassbender ("Steve Jobs") and Eddie Redmayne ("The Danish Girl").

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Declared the category's tentative front-runner after September's annual film festivals, "Spotlight" took home Best Picture at the Oscars on Sunday.

Despite the movie's early momentum, its win came as something of a surprise after "The Revenant" and "Mad Max: Fury Road" collected most of the night's awards. The only other prize "Spotlight" won was Best Original Screenplay.

Directed by Tom McCarthy, "Spotlight" was lauded for its deft portrait of the Boston Globe journalists who uncovered systemic sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. The movie's odds of winning escalated after it seized the Screen Actors Guild's top prize, though it faced steep competition in "The Revenant" and "The Big Short." 

"Spotlight" topped "The Big Short," "Bridge of Spies," "Brooklyn," "Mad Max: Fury Road," "The Martian," "The Revenant" and "Room" for Best Picture.

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Chris Rock, you god. 

Tasked with tackling the complicated #OscarsSoWhite controversies, Rock returned to the Oscar stage for the first time since 2005 -- and he delivered. During Sunday's awards, where "Spotlight" took home Best Picture, Rock steered the ship with biting but even-toned jokes about Hollywood's diversity issues. Along the way, a few other things happened, some wild and others wildly boring. Here are some of the best and worst moments from the Oscars.

BEST: Chris Rock's opening line: "If they nominated a host, I wouldn't even get this job! Y'all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now." 

BEST: Watching the nervous white people (aka everyone except Whoopi Goldberg) decide how much they're allowed to laugh at Chris Rock's race jokes.

WORST: The thank-you lists that scrolled across the bottom of the screen did nothing to stop most winners from acknowledging their aunts' kids' dogs. Even worse, it made many of them seem almost too poised, like they'd spent too much time rehearsing. Did anyone cry?

WORST: Hi, famous white men! Did you intentionally not clap when Jenny Beavan won Best Costume Design for "Mad Max: Fury Road"?

BEST: Whoopi Goldberg, Leslie Jones, "danish girl" Tracey Morgan and "black astronaut" Chris Rock excoriated the many movies that lacked black characters this year.

BEST/WORST: Amid a firestorm of clever jokes about #OscarsSoWhite, Chris Rock introduced "Clueless" star and noted Black History Month opponent Stacey Dash to wish everyone a happy Black History Month. It was a bold joke that Stacey Dash did not know quite how to pull off, resulting in awkward silence and a very confused reaction from The Weeknd.

WORST: Minions.

WORST: Chris Rock, still riding a streak of hosting excellence, seemed to decide we'd rather Ellen DeGeneres take over, so approximately 90 minutes in, he recruited audience members to buy his daughters' Girl Scout cookies. Who needs pizza? Thin Mints are a better use of celebrity calories. 

BEST: Chris Rock revived the (wo)man-on-the-street bit from his 2005 hosting gig to discover that a lot of moviegoers haven't heard of "Spotlight" or "Bridge of Spies."

BEST: Louis C.K. basically auditioned to be next year's host while presenting the award for Best Documentary Short, promising no one will make "a dime" off this win. Hire him, Academy!

BEST: Jacob Tremblay reacting to C-3PO, R2-D2 and BB-8 walking onto the stage. (See also: Jacob Tremblay being so thrilled when Brie Larson won Best Actress.)

BEST: Despite the weird camera angles throughout, Lady Gaga's performance of her "Hunting Ground" song, "Til It Happens To You," led to the night's most moving moment. Following an introduction from her "friend" Joe Biden, who spoke about the country's campus-rape epidemic, Gaga was flanked by sex-abuse survivors who bore tattoos with messages like "NOT YOUR FAULT."

BEST: "It is late! It is infomercial late!" Chris Rock announced at 11:43 p.m., 13 minutes after the telecast was slated to end and with three awards left to present.

BEST: "Spotlight" won! 

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